Back in the days when people were taking their first 'sunshine vacations', the rich and famous – movie stars, fashion designers and the like – were making it increasingly fashionable to slowly bake yourself to a golden brown courtesy of the sun, and the browner you were, the more of a status symbol it was.

A deep, rich sun tan was accepted far and wide as a sign that you had money, and lots of it. After all, you were only going to get a tan like that if you could afford to take lots of time off to go somewhere exotic and expensive for a lengthy period of time because a week on the beach after a relatively short haul flight wasn't going to cut it.

And as for sunbeds and the subsequent tanning booth revolution, well, what were they?